Last year Dubai and the Middle East saw its first two theme parks in IMG Worlds of Adventure and Dubai Parks and Resorts, while destinations like Global Village, Ski Dubai and Dubai Dolphinarium continued evolving. These theme parks and other variants of amusement concepts aside, now Dubai is also home to the Dubai Opera.

The UAE capital has taken pride in Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, a highly attractive destination on Yas Island that continues to pull visitors, while many more concepts are scheduled to come – such as Warner Bros Abu Dhabi in 2018 followed by SeaWorld in 2022.

Qatar is home to the world’s first Angry Birds World concept, Saudi Arabia is firmly focusing on its 2030 vision that aims to create leisure and entertainment facilities comparable to London and New York. In Oman work is underway to develop some unique retail-cum-leisure destinations. Bahrain and Kuwait are not far behind. As a whole, the region is growing.

RetailME writes about this already vibrant leisure and entertainment industry

Content must be creative and original

Some of the recurring themes in the leisure and entertainment industry are: thinking out-of-the-box; being original; and being agile to adapt to changing market dynamics quickly, opines Gary Goddard, founder & CEO, The Goddard Group – a US-based themed entertainment integrator.

“The need of the hour is to create original concepts. The way for Dubai, or any other country/city in the Middle East, to succeed is not by recreating what Disney or Universal Studios have already done. The way forward is original thinking. The world’s first Bollywood Parks comes up as a surprise hit within the Dubai Parks and Resorts. That’s not surprising at all – its new, its different and its original,” he avers.

Indeed people are expecting different kinds of entertainment. The percentage of retail and leisure and entertainment is changing worldwide. Offering the same products time and again won’t work. There is more and more scope to introduce new kinds of entertainment within retail properties because people are looking for newer and exciting social spaces.